ASSIGNMENT SHEET

PAPER ONE | RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE MEDIA

INTRODUCTIONWhether you follow the news regularly or not, the events being reported in the news affect you. You may not know much about, say, the latest political debate over the “fiscal cliff,” but the outcome of that debate will have an impact on your life. The same is true about arguments being made in the media about the news. A satirical point made by Stephen Colbert one night on The Colbert Report or an opinion piece written by a lead editor in The Wall Street Journal may not have a single immediate impact on you, but the eventual outcome of such discussions will. The topics of these discussions are endless. Should there be tighter gun control in our country? What should the tax rate be for high-income individuals? How should we handle, as a nation, the problem of our high college dropout rate? Such questions are vigorously debated every day across all forms of media: newspapers, websites, weekly magazines, blogs, television programs, podcasts, radio shows, books, tweets, speeches….the list goes on and on. Our goal for this assignment is for each one of you to try and make sense of one argument being made about a single issue. To help you in this endeavor, we will spend our time this unit exploring a series of interrelated questions. How are different arguments made? How do they appeal to certain people using logic, emotion, and values? How do they establish their own credibility? How do they use words as well as images and sound to achieve these effects? How do arguments made in the news media – a highly contested arena of discussion and debate – take shape and persuade their audiences?

ASSIGNMENTIn a 3-4 page paper, analyze in detail the rhetorical strategies of a news media argument of your choosing. You can choose any “text” from the media that you want, but it must advance some kind of point of view and it should be of manageable scope (such as one article, one segment of a television show, one blog, etc.). Make sure you don’t pick a straight objective text (a term we will define more specifically). Your chosen text needs to be from the news media but can be from any news-related medium, as we will discuss during the first week of this unit. Your analysis should consider what the central argument is of the text you are choosing and how it makes its argument. Even though your focus should be specific, you should also discuss how the text you have chosen fits in with the larger medium in which it is presented (the newspaper it is published in, the website it is posted on, the television program it is a part of, etc.). How, in other words, is the argument being made in your chosen text influenced by the site of its publication or appearance and thus also its readership or viewership? In the course of your analysis, you need to discuss the following rhetorical concepts as they relate to your text: purpose, occasion, kind, audience, context, structure, and appeals of pathos, ethos, and logos. To this end, our readings during this unit on argument and on the media will inform this essay to a high degree, so I will be looking for your ability to apply the key concepts we will be learning. Keep in mind that your analysis is itself an argument, so you want to apply strong critical reasoning to your analysis, use plentiful evidence from your text to back up your points, and get your reader to care about the case you are making. I will ask you to attach a Works Cited page to your final draft so that I can access the text.

DUE DATESPaper Topic: Week 1, Day 4Rough Draft: Week 2, Day 4Revision Plan: Week 3, Day 2Final Draft: Week 3, Day 7

LEARNING OBJECTIVESBy the end of this assignment, you should be able to:

Appropriately choose a paper topic that is neither too broad nor too narrow Be able to identify a text that can be considered part of the news media Apply the basic concepts of news media (such as “bias” or “objectivity”) to your analysis as

relevant Wield the basic terms of rhetorical analysis in a deft and persuasive manner, demonstrating your

understanding of those terms Select and organize from your chosen text the best evidence to support your various points of

analysis Employ a logical structure to an analysis that leads your readers clearly through your argument Persuade your reader that the text you have selected is worth analyzing in depth and that your

analysis reveals something interesting about it Build towards a clear, meaningful thesis that unifies your entire paper Create a works cited page for your one source

EVALUATION CRITERIAYour final drafts will be graded according to the following criteria:

A wealth of textual details that support your analytic points An organization that is logical and reader-friendly and that best serves your goal of providing us

with a comprehensive analysis of your chosen text Creativity and critical thinking in how you break your text into its parts and explain how those

parts work together to create the text’s central argument Insight into the role that the news media plays in our culture and how it relates to an audience The ability to move beyond the surface elements of your text to understand its deeper, (often)

unspoken assumptions A strong central claim that ties together everything you are saying in the essay Polished and confident prose that reflects your voice and careful editing An appropriate balance of accurately presented quotations from your chosen text and

paraphrases and summaries of that text The use of sentence structure and word choice to integrate the words and ideas of your text

smoothly into your own writing and to distinguish the author’s words and ideas from your own

UNIT ONE AGENDA – INSTRUCTOR VIEW

Instructor Student

Week 1 Day 1

Post:• Assignment Sheet• Unit Agenda• Readings or “raw materials” to consider – in notes,or in book, or external links—in content/rhetoric• “Advice on Learning Objectives”• Discussion Prompts and Reminders aboutExpectations for Participation

1. Read “Introduction” to Brooke Gladstone’s The Influencing Machine, “Chapter 5: A Medium of the Most General Nature” from Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows, & “Advice on Learning Objectives”

2. Respond to Discussion Prompt3. Ask any questions you have about the Paper

Assignment

Week 1 Day 2 Read & respond to posts, answer student questions Continue to read, respond, and ask questions

Week 1 Day 3 Read & respond to posts, answer student questions Continue to read, respond, ask questions

Week 1 Day 4

CHATPost:• Quiz/other reading check• “Advice on Drafting”• Discussion Prompt about Drafting• Responses to Paper Topics

OPTIONAL LIVE CHAT1. Post Paper Topic2. Complete quiz (deadline)3. Respond to Discussion Prompt about Drafting4. Continue to respond (deadline)5. Read “Advice on Drafting”

Week 1 Day 5

Read, respond, answer questions 1. Respond to peers’ posts for Discussion Prompt2. Draft3. Continue to respond to Prompt about Drafting

Week 1 Day 6Read, respond, answer questions 1. Continue to respond

2. Continue to draft

Week 1 Day 7Read, respond, answer questions 1. Continue to respond (deadline)

2. Continue to draft

Week 2 Day 1

Post:• Assessment of week 1 participation/discussion• Update on Weekly Agenda & to-do list check-in• Discussion wrap-up from Week 1• Peer Review Exercise & Revision Plan Instructions(assignment directions, advice, models)• Any additional Readings• Discussion Prompts• Score or check off quiz/other reading check

1. View sites for The New York Times Opinion Page, Andrew Sullivan’s “The Dish” blog, & The Colbert Report

2. Read assigned selections from NY Times & “The Dish”

3. View “The Word” segment from assigned episode of The Colbert Report

4. Respond to Discussion Prompt5. Continue to draft

Week 2 Day 2Read, respond, answer questions 1. Continue to view/read and respond

2. Continue to draft

Week 2 Day 3Read, respond, answer questions 1. Continue to view/read and respond

2. Continue to draft

Week 2 Day 4

CHATPost:• Quiz/other reading check

Read, respond, answer questions

OPTIONAL LIVE CHAT1. Turn in draft & post for peer review (deadline)2. Complete quiz (deadline)3. Continue to respond (deadline)

Week 2 Day 5Comment on draftsRead, respond, answer questions

1. Respond to peer essays2. Respond to peers’ posts for Discussion Prompt

Week 2 Day 6Comment on draftsRead, respond, answer questions

1. Continue to respond to peer essays2. Continue to respond to peers’ posts for Prompt

Week 2 Day 7Comment on draftsRead, respond, answer questions

1. Continue to respond to peer essays (deadline)2. Continue to respond to peers’ posts for Prompt

(deadline)

Week 3 Day 1

Post:• Assessment of week 2 participation/discussion• Update on Weekly Agenda & to-do list check-in• Discussion wrap-up from Week 2• Revision Plan Instructions• Style Lesson and any associated assignment• Discussion prompts• Score or check off quiz/other reading check

Comment on draftsRead, respond, answer questions

Write revision plan

Week 3 Day 2Comment on draftsRead, respond, answer questions

Continue to write revision plan (deadline)

Week 3 Day 3Post: Response to drafts & to Revision Plans

Read, respond, answer questions

Revise

Week 3 Day 4CHAT

Read, respond, answer questionsOPTIONAL LIVE CHAT

Continue to revise

Week 3 Day 5Check-in on revisions in progressRead, respond, answer questions

Continue to revise

Week 3 Day 6Read, respond, answer questions Continue to revise

Week 3 Day 7Read, respond, answer questions Turn in final draft to be graded

UNIT ONE AGENDA – STUDENT VIEW

Day Tasks

Week 1 Day 1

1. Read “Introduction” to Brooke Gladstone’s The Influencing Machine, “Chapter 5: A Medium of the Most General Nature” from Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows, & “Advice on Learning Objectives”

2. Respond to Discussion Prompt3. Ask any questions you have about the Paper

Assignment

Week 1 Day 2 Continue to read, respond, and ask questions

Week 1 Day 3 Continue to read, respond, ask questions

Week 1 Day 4

OPTIONAL LIVE CHAT1. Post Paper Topic2. Complete quiz (deadline)3. Respond to Discussion Prompt about Drafting4. Continue to respond (deadline)5. Read “Advice on Drafting”

Week 1 Day 51. Respond to peers’ posts for Discussion Prompt2. Draft3. Continue to respond to Prompt about Drafting

Week 1 Day 61. Continue to respond2. Continue to draft

Week 1 Day 71. Continue to respond (deadline)2. Continue to draft

Week 2 Day 1

1. View sites for The New York Times Opinion Page, Andrew Sullivan’s “The Dish” blog, & The Colbert Report

2. Read assigned selections from NY Times & “The Dish”

3. View “The Word” segment from assigned episode of The Colbert Report

4. Respond to Discussion Prompt5. Continue to draft

Week 2 Day 21. Continue to view/read and respond2. Continue to draft

Week 2 Day 31. Continue to view/read and respond2. Continue to draft

Week 2 Day 4

OPTIONAL LIVE CHAT1. Turn in draft & post for peer review (deadline)2. Complete quiz (deadline)3. Continue to respond (deadline)

Week 2 Day 51. Respond to peer essays2. Respond to peers’ posts for Discussion Prompt

Week 2 Day 61. Continue to respond to peer essays2. Continue to respond to peers’ posts for Prompt

Week 2 Day 71. Continue to respond to peer essays (deadline)2. Continue to respond to peers’ posts for Prompt

(deadline)

Week 3 Day 1Write revision plan

Week 3 Day 2Continue to write revision plan (deadline)

Week 3 Day 3Revise

Week 3 Day 4OPTIONAL LIVE CHAT

Continue to revise

Week 3 Day 5Continue to revise

Continue to revise

WEEK 1 AGENDA

This Week You Will:

Read the Assignment Sheet for this unit’s paper and ask me any questions you have about the assignment under the Discussion Board Prompt “Questions about Paper One” or via email. Unless you are asking a question that you would prefer remain private, I would ask that you post these questions on the Discussion Board since others may have the same question.

Choose the “text” you are going to analyze by Day 4 and make sure that you get my approval. Follow the directions for doing so under the Discussion Board Prompt “Paper One Topics.”

Read the “Introduction” to Brooke Gladstone’s The Influencing Machine, “Chapter 5: A Medium of the Most General Nature” from Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows, and the course-specific “Advice on Learning Objectives” which will give you further help with your papers as well as definitions of the critical terms you will be using in your analysis (and that we will be using for the rest of the semester). All three of these readings will be in PDF form and can be found in our Week 1 Folder. You must complete these readings by Day 4; at some point during Day 4 you must take a very brief quiz testing that you did the readings. This quiz will not be available after Day 4, so make sure you take it by midnight.

Respond to the Discussion Board Prompt about the assigned reading by Day 4. See the Interaction Guidelines for my expectations regarding your post.

Respond to two of your peers’ posts by Day 7.

Begin drafting your paper . I will create a Discussion Board Prompt entitled “Prompt about Drafting” for questions and issues that arise during the drafting process, so please direct your concerns and queries there. We will use this space as a place to discuss your ongoing issues and triumphs with the drafting process. Before you draft, you must read the PDF document “Advice on Drafting” which will be posted on Day 4 in the Week 1 Folder; this doc contains crucial information and guidance you will need as you begin work on your paper.

WEEK 2 AGENDA

This Week You Will:

Explore the websites for The New York Times Opinion Page (http://www.nytimes.com/pages/ opinion/index.html), Andrew Sullivan’s “The Dish” blog (http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast. com/), and The Colbert Report (http://www.colbertnation.com/). Take note of the types of stories covered, the look of the sites, and the kinds of opinions expressed there. Then read the specific op-ed pieces that I assign from each of these sites (which will all be on a similar news item). Finally, watch “The Word” segment from the recent episode of The Colbert Report that I assign. Just like last week, you must complete these “readings” by Day 4; at some point during Day 4 you must take a very brief quiz testing that you did so. This quiz will not be available after Day 4, so make sure you take it by midnight.

Respond to the Discussion Board Prompt about the assigned reading by Day 4.

Respond to two of your peers’ posts by Day 7.

Continue to draft your paper . As you draft, keep asking questions and making contributions to our Discussion Tread “Prompt about Drafting.” You will submit a copy to me via our course dropbox and post a copy in your group’s Discussion Board Peer Review Thread for your group members to see by Day 4.

Read and respond to your group members’ drafts. Follow the directions for doing so as I’ve laid them out in Discussion Board under the Prompt title “Peer Review Paper One.” You must complete this activity by Day 7.

WEEK 3 AGENDA

This Week You Will:

Write your revision plan . This plan must be submitted via our dropbox by Day 2.

Read the Style Lesson and apply the concept of the lesson to your own revisions.

Finish revising your paper and submit the final draft by Day 7. You will submit this draft via Turnitin.com. During this week, I will set up a Discussion Board Thread entitled “Prompt about Revising” where you all can share your frustrations, your breakthroughs, and your questions. Good luck revising, and if you have any questions, please share them on Discussion Board or through email!

READINGS & RAW MATERIALS

Week 1

“Introduction” to Brooke Gladstone’s The Influencing Machine (2011) pgs. xi-xxii (PDF) “Chapter 5: A Medium of the Most General Nature” from Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the

Internet is Doing to Our Brains (2010) (PDF)

Week 2

The New York Times Opinion Pageshttp://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html

Andrew Sullivan’s “The Dish” blog on The Daily Beasthttp://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/

The most recent episode of The Colbert Reporthttp://www.colbertnation.com/

ADVICE ON LEARNING OBJECTIVES – CHOOSING A TOPIC & ANALYZING A TEXT

Choosing a Topic

As you consider possible choices for the text you want to analyze, keep in mind the following.

First, the best places to begin your search will be the sources you already use to get your news and to read/hear opinions about the news. If there are certain television shows, websites, print sources, or other places that you frequent, check those out first. The advantage of picking from a media source you are familiar with is that you will already have some knowledge about the it and its audience. A different, and equally valid strategy, would be to check out opinion pieces from media sources that you have always been curious about or that even represent very different points of view from your own. The benefit of this approach is that the media source will be fresh to you and thus easier to gain some critical distance from (especially if it is something you disagree with!). Don’t forget the news about sports, entertainment, business, and technology all fall under the larger news umbrella and thus could be valid choices.

Second, wherever you get your source, make sure you will have access to the text (whether it be print, video, audio, or something else) for the length of this unit.

Third, also make sure that the text is offering a viewpoint on the news item and does not fall under the category of objective journalism as we have been discussing.

Fourth, you should decide whether you want the subject of your text to be on a topic you are familiar with. There are benefits either way (possessing additional background information on the topic that can aid your analysis versus bringing a fresh and perhaps less biased opinion to your analysis), but you should be thinking about this as you make your choice.

Fifth, as I warned you about in the Assignment Sheet, make sure your text is neither too short (less than an op-ed in length) nor too long.

Finally, choose a text that is fairly recent, ideally within the past two weeks.

Analyzing a Text

There are a number of key concepts that we will be using in our study of argument. These concepts will help us when we analyze the arguments of others and when we craft our own arguments, and we will use them throughout the course of the semester. These concepts are all borrowed from the textbook, Everything’s an Argument by Andrea A. Lunsford and John R. Ruszkiewicz. Some of the terms you see here you may have first been introduced to in your College Writing I sections; thus this material may be a review of some concepts as well as an advancement of your understanding of them and your ability to apply them directly in the service of a rhetorical analysis.

Purpose

The purpose of an argument is the intended affect that the argument is supposed to have on its audience. How, you should ask, does the author of the argument want us to respond? The purposes of an argument can be to:

Inform – The central purpose of arguments to inform is to provide an audience with information that they did not previously possess. Objective news, for instance, is argument to inform, as are most college textbooks. Consider the front page of, say, www.cnn.com.

Convince – Arguments to convince are typically aimed at audiences who are neutral to the topic at hand but nonetheless try to make a case regarding a set of facts. Convincing requires first establishing those facts and then saying something about those facts, often in the form of analysis. Many academic or policy arguments, for instance, fall into this category, as does the paper you are writing for this unit. One example of arguments to convince are the very popular works of history by Doris Kearns, Goodwin, including the recent Team of Rivals, upon which Stephen Spielberg based his 2012 film Lincoln. As the amazon.com review of the book states,

In Team of Rivals, esteemed historian Doris Kearns Goodwin offer[s] fresh insights into Lincoln's leadership style and his deep understanding of human behavior and motivation. Goodwin makes the case for Lincoln's political genius by examining his relationships with three men he selected for his cabinet, all of whom were opponents for the Republican nomination in 1860: William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, and Edward Bates. These men, all accomplished, nationally known, and presidential, originally disdained Lincoln for his backwoods upbringing and lack of experience, and were shocked and humiliated at losing to this relatively obscure Illinois lawyer. Yet Lincoln not only convinced them to join his administration--Seward as secretary of state, Chase as secretary of the treasury, and Bates as attorney general--he ultimately gained their admiration and respect as well. How he soothed egos, turned rivals into allies, and dealt with many challenges to his leadership, all for the sake of the greater good, is largely what Goodwin's fine book is about. Had he not possessed the wisdom and confidence to select and work with the best people, she argues, he could not have led the nation through one of its darkest periods.

Goodwin’s book is thus focused on convincing us of Lincoln’s “political genius.”

Persuade – Persuasive arguments tend to incorporate more emotional appeals than arguments to convince and to move the audience more towards taking some kind of action. The presidential race of 2012 contained many arguments to persuade. Commercials are another common example of these arguments, such as this famous one from Nike in the 1980s featuring Charles Barkley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMzdAZ3TjCA.

Explore – Arguments to explore are interested in considering, in an open-ended kind of way, the complexities of an issue or question without necessarily coming to any clear-cut conclusions. Such arguments ask their audience to think more fully about an issue. Many documentaries use such an argumentative purpose, as do many forms of storytelling. One memorable example from popular culture was the television show The Sopranos, which explored in a non-judgmental way the reality of life as a gangster in suburban, modern-day New Jersey.

Make Decisions – These arguments are directed squarely at enabling someone to make a choice about something. One such example is the advice that all college students receive as they decide on a major. Another is the trip advice travelers seek when visiting new destinations. Visiting Boston for the first time? Consider this advice from Lonely Planet to help you decide what to do with your time: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/usa/boston/things-to-do.

Contemplate – Contemplative arguments are made with the purpose of asking an audience to think or feel something in a reflective manner such as a prayer or a poem might:

“Passing Time,” by Maya Angelou

Your skin like dawnMine like musk

One paints the beginningof a certain end.

The other, the end of asure beginning.

Please note that some arguments may have more than one primary purpose.

Occasion

The occasion of argument refers to the time frame that the argument seems to be focused on: the past, the present, or the future.

The Past – Arguments about the past are often concerned with what really happened and what caused something to happen.

The Present – Arguments focused on the present are focused on what is happening now, and many arguments that we see in the news fit into this category.

The Future – Arguments about the future are often interested in decisions and the consequences of those decisions.

Just as arguments can have more than one primary purpose, some arguments may be focused on more than one occasion (maybe exploring the causes that have led to a current problem and an analysis of why that problem is so serious in the present).

Kind

Another way to categorize arguments is based on the nature of the question they inherently pose. Kinds of arguments include:

Arguments of Fact/Did something happen? – Arguments of fact try to establish the “facts on the ground” by asking: what really happened? Did anything happen? What do we really know? Just establishing the facts can often be extremely difficult in an argument, and because many other kinds of arguments proceed from facts, often factual arguments are the first stage in a larger discussion. An example of this kind of argument is The 9/11 Commission Report, a full explanation of the events that lead to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The information contained in this report was seen as so important that an “illustrated” graphic adaptation was made as well:

Arguments of Definition/What is the nature of the thing? – Once we know the reality of something, we can then try and define it, put it into some kind of category. Arguments of definition are not arguments about entries in the dictionary;

they are more profound arguments about the nature of something when how we define it isn’t clear-cut or socially agreed upon. These arguments typically involved a case being made for the definition itself and then evidence showing that the subject in question fits that definition. One example from recent social debates has been the question of what defines “marriage” and whether the union of a gay or lesbian couple fits that definition.

Arguments of Evaluation/What is the quality of the thing? – We evaluate things all the time to assess their quality, their effectiveness, their strengths and weaknesses. In order to make an argument of evaluation, one must establish a set of criteria for evaluation and then weigh the thing being discussed against those criteria. The popular website www.rottentomatoes.com provides plentiful examples of arguments of evaluation in the form of movie reviews.

Arguments of Causality/What is the cause of the thing? Arguments of causality can focus on the causes of something or on its consequences. Figuring out the chain of causal links is often extremely complicated not always direct, but these kinds of questions are the focus of much academic work. OK Go’s video for “This Too Shall Pass” features a wonderfully ornate series of causes and effects: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w.

Arguments of Proposal/What actions should be taken? Proposal arguments are especially challenging to make since they ask their audience to not only think about something differently but to take some kind of action. Proposals can vary from the small and mundane to the large-scale and global. One such example is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s call for action after the massacre in Newton, Connecticut in December of 2012:

With all the carnage from gun violence in our country, it's still almost impossible to believe that a mass shooting in a kindergarten class could happen. It has come to that. Not even kindergarteners learning their ABC's are safe. We heard after Columbine that it was too soon to talk about gun laws. We heard it after Virginia Tech. After Tucson and Aurora and Oak Creek. And now we are hearing it again. For every day we wait, 34 more people are murdered with guns. Today, many of them were five-year-olds. President Obama rightly sent his heartfelt condolences to the families in Newtown. But the country needs him to send a bill to Congress to fix this problem. Calling for 'meaningful action' is not enough. We need immediate action. We have heard all the rhetoric before. What we have not seen is leadership – not from the White House and not from Congress. That must end today. This is a national tragedy and it demands a national response. My deepest sympathies are with the families of all those affected, and my determination to stop this madness is stronger than ever.

Audience

Identifying the audience of an argument is one of the most, if not the most, important dimensions to understanding an argument. Every argument made is an argument made for a particular audience. The audience determines all the choices that someone makes during the course of crafting his or her argument: the background information needed, the style and tone used, the means of persuasion applied, the shared values invoked, the visual design of the argument, the purpose of the argument, etc. Sometimes an audience might be very narrow and specific; at others, it might be very broad and inclusive. You should always try and understand the audience of an argument as best you can. At times, it will be obvious because of where you found the argument or because the person or group making the argument states it explicitly, but at other times you will have to work backwards from the argument, reading between the lines, in order to puzzle out who you think the author is trying to reach.

Context

We will use the term context to refer to the larger context that an argument fits into as well as the medium of its presentation. Thus, context refers to those things outside the specific text that shape that text: the larger debate that the text fits into, the moment in history that informs that text, the way that text is being disseminated to its audience. Figuring out context requires either background knowledge that you already possess, or, possibly, some additional research of you are reading about a subject you are less familiar with.

The Structure of an Argument

All arguments possess some kind of structure to them, and more complex arguments will often have more moving parts and thus a more complex structure. The model for argument structure we will be using is called the Toulmin model. This model works best with the verbal dimensions of argument, so with arguments that are written or spoken. The Toulmin model contains the following elements:

Claim – The claim is the central argument. Some arguments contain the claim explicitly, and some don’t state it and so have an implicit claim.

Reason – This is the main reason that supports the claim. Often, there will be multiple reasons that support the main claim.

Warrant – This is one of the most complicated concepts we will be studying. The warrant is the assumption (almost always unspoken) that links the reason(s) back to the claim. One way to think of it is to think about what fact, value, or idea enables it so that the reason justifies the claim or makes the claim possible. Identifying warrants takes a lot of work, but they are crucial since if the audience doesn’t accept the warrant, then the entire argument falls apart. If the warrant itself is debatable for the audience, then it too must be defended.

Evidence – The evidence makes up the majority of many arguments and is comprised of all the subsidiary reasons and pieces of evidence (examples, illustrations, anecdotes, testimonies, data, surveys, etc.) that support the main reason(s).

Qualifiers – Qualifiers form a more minor, but nonetheless critical, aspect of argument. They are words or phrases used to limit the argument in some way.

Conditions of Rebuttal – Whenever an argument responds in some way to likely counterarguments, it is using conditions of rebuttal. Dealing with counterarguments – by acknowledging them or refuting them – is essential to powerful arguments.

Appeals in Argument

Arguments use all sorts of appeals to assert their claims, but there are three primary means at their disposal to do so. Those can be divided into appeals based on:

Logos – Any appeals based on logic. This includes the use of reasons and evidence. Often, when we talk about arguments, we are talking about ones that use logos extensively. All of the arguments you write this semester will be rooted in logos, as will most of the ones you create across your entire academic career here at UMass Lowell. Think of logos as your use of whatever proof you have to establish your claim. Also notice that there is a difference between hard evidence (observation, experimental results, experience, statistics, surveys, polls, testimonies, facts, etc.) and the use of reasons and/or common sense. Reasons draw conclusions based on hard evidence and require an active mind at work trying to explain something, whereas hard evidence is the proof itself coming in the form of observable phenomena. This is the difference between reasoning out that there must be parallel universes and the observable phenomena of the universe that we can measure to help us get to that conclusion. Both reasons and hard evidence fit into the category of logos.

Ethos – Any appeal based on the character of the person or group making the argument. This refers to credibility and how that credibility appeals to the particular audience. No matter if an argument uses primarily a logos-driven argument, a pathos-driven one, neither, or somewhere in between, all arguments inherently use some appeal of ethos since audiences will always make judgments about the character and credibility of the person or group making the argument. Sometimes, an argument will make explicit reference to ethos in an attempt to establish credibility, while at others that ethos will be inferred. Ethos is established through a number of means, including experiences, training, and education; personality; word choices and style; fairness and attitude to divergent points of view; use of sources; visual appearance (of the speaker or of the argument itself); treatment of the audience; and logical use of evidence. All of these factors work in tandem to create a sense of the ethos of an argument. It is crucial to realize that ethos can is also context-based. In other words, what may make someone credible in one situation may render them not credible in another. You might not trust someone who has been imprisoned for committing grand larceny about how to handle your money, but you might trust him if you’re trying to find out what it’s like to be in prison for a white collar crime. You might trust a soldier in Afghanistan about what it’s like fighting a war in that country, but you might not trust her on the question of the best way to protest an abuse of civil liberties at a major corporation. You might not trust a 6-year-old girl on the best way to get a job, but you might trust her on what it’s like to be a 6-year-old girl with an overactive imagination.

Pathos – Any appeal based on emotion and values. Appeals based on pathos can vary from the subtle to the overblown. The difference between emotion-based appeals versus value-based appeals is not clear-cut, but it is necessary to realize that the term pathos covers both kinds of

appeals. Thus, someone may try to make you feel sympathy for a cause, or to be troubled by a current problem, or to become outraged by an injustice, just as he or she may appeal to values like decency, protecting our children, or patriotism to make a case. Appeals to pathos, when used effectively and in a way that will build a bridge to the specific audience, can be incredibly effective at supplementing the logic of an argument. Most of the examples of argument we will be studying this semester will use some kind of pathetic (yes, this is the adjective form of pathos) appeal in addition to a logical one, but there are many arguments that exclusively use pathos such as propaganda or many forms of advertising.

Most arguments use a combination of these appeals, though not all arguments use all three or use them to the same degree.

DISCUSSION PROMPTS

Week 1

We are going to be reading and writing about the media for the next three weeks, so let’s use Gladstone and Carr as a jumping off point. What do you think Gladstone is saying about the relationship between the media and ourselves? What idea, sentence, or image in her “Introduction” did you react most strongly to and why? What do you think Carr means by the phrase “a medium of the most general nature”? What idea or sentence in his chapter did you react most strongly to and why? In your response, in addition to using examples from both texts, feel free to also draw on your own experiences with the news and the internet. (You might say something, for instance, about where you get your news.)

Week 2

How did each of the assigned opinion pieces you read or watched comment on the same news item? Who do you think is the intended audience for each of these arguments, and how persuasive do you think each one was for their intended audience? What were their strengths and weaknesses as pieces of argument? Finally, what role do you think the medium played in the message? In other words, did the fact that one was a newspaper op-ed, one was a blog entry, and one a television show affect in any way how each argument was made?

READING CHECK

Quiz #1

1. Who is “Patient Zero” in Gladstone’s “Introduction”?2. What is the “medium of the most general nature” according to Carr?3. How would you summarize Carr’s attitude towards this medium?

Quiz #2

Briefly summarize the main argument made by Sullivan, Colbert, and The New York Times writer in the pieces you were assigned. Be specific and demonstrate that you did indeed complete all three “readings.”

ADVICE ON DRAFTING

Keep your purpose in mind. You are not offering your opinion on the issue covered by your text, so your reader should not know what your stance is on the issue discussed by your chosen text. Your purpose is, rather, to offer an objective analysis of the text’s strategies of argumentation as it tries to persuade its particular audience. You are trying to assess both how it makes its argument and how effective you think it was in persuading that audience. For example, you could choose a text that you personally strongly disagree with but that you determine through close analysis actually does an excellent job of persuading its intended audience. Try to maintain critical distance so that you can fairly assess your text.

Your audience for this assignment is a general, educated, adult audience who is familiar with major news but not necessarily in any depth. Depending on what text you choose, you may have to provide some background information to your readers so that they understand the necessary context of the argument being made in your chosen text.

Because you are writing a rhetorical analysis, you should employ a style suited to your purpose and audience. That style should sound poised, professional, polished, and fair-minded without sounding forced or totally out of synch with the range of voices you feel comfortable with as a writer. Achieving this balance is very tricky and will come more naturally to some more than others. We will work on the style of these essays all unit long, and we will target one specific style issue in Week 3 when we focus on how to quote and integrate quotations into your own sentences.

As you draft, you should keep returning to the question of what all the points of your analysis add up to (otherwise known as your thesis). I do not expect that you will have a rock-solid thesis by the time you share your rough draft with me and your peers, but you should keep pushing yourself to get there. What overarching idea unites all the points you are making for each piece of your analysis. What is the major point you are trying to make about how your chosen text makes its argument and how effectively it does so? If nothing else, by the time you are nearing the end of your first draft, you should force yourself to craft some kind of first run of a possible thesis so that you can get feedback on it from your peers. That thesis will become the basis for the entire paper and will control all of the points you make in your analysis, and it will be a statement of your own critical interpretation of your chosen text. With this rough draft, aim for the best you can get now, knowing that your thesis will continue to evolve once you get feedback from me and your peers.

The majority of your paper’s content will be an analysis of your chosen text, using the key terms of argument you read about in “Advice on Learning Objectives.” How you organize your paragraphs will be up to you, but you should make sure that you are looking, in detail, at how your chosen text makes its argument and back up all of your points with reasons and evidence from the text. How much attention you pay to each of the terms of argumentation we are studying will depend on your thesis and your chose text, but you should definitely spend the most time talking about audience, context, structure (using Toulmin), and appeals (logos, ethos, and pathos). As you draft, keep thinking about how all of the elements of argument are working in tandem in the text and how effectively the text achieves its purpose with its audience.

If your text is paginated (which means that it was published in some form where there were page numbers assigned in the original document – most websites are not paginated in this sense, but most newspaper or magazine articles are), then make sure you use MLA format to give the correct page number when you quote or paraphrase from it. There are many good websites for help with this format, and here is one of the best: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ owl/resource/747/01/. You only have to do this if your text is more than one page, however.

DISCUSSION PROMPT ABOUT DRAFTING

This is your first paper for College Writing II, so I would just like to get a sense for how you are all doing with the drafting process. How is it going so far? What problems or issues have you encountered in the writing process? What questions have been raised in your mind about the assignment and what you are doing with your paper?

PEER REVIEW EXERCISE

You will be assigned groups of four for this peer review exercise and will only be able to view the posted papers of the people assigned to your group. For this peer review, I would like for you to complete the following steps:

1. Post your paper to Discussion Board as a word document attachment. (Don’t forget to also submit a copy to me via dropbox – this is a separate step!) In the post, feel free to add any comments or questions you want to direct your peers to.

2. Read each person’s draft (so that will be a total of three drafts). 3. Respond to the peer review questions in full for each person’s draft. Your responses should be

specific, constructive, and positive and should always be geared towards helping the author write the best final draft as possible. Recognize that you are reading and giving feedback as a fellow writer and so you should consider each draft as a work in progress. You never want to be cruel or negative, but you also need to be honest when something in the draft needs work. Always back up your points with specific references to the author’s text or specific ideas you want to suggest to the author. I cannot emphasize enough the necessity of being specific and useful with your answers.

4. Post your feedback for each person’s paper as a response to their initial posting.5. Complete these steps no later than Week 2, Day 7.6. Read through the feedback you received on your draft, continue to follow up with your peers

with any additional questions or points of clarification, and begin drafting your Revision Plan.

PEER REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. What is the author’s thesis about the text being analyzed? Is it clear enough and does it appropriately synthesize the ideas of the entire analysis? Could it be improved in any way (clarified, modified, expanded, etc.)?

2. How effectively does the author organize the analysis? Is there clear transition between paragraphs and topic sentences that organize each paragraph? Were you ever confused about what was happening in the paper or how ideas fit into the whole?

3. As a reader, how engaged were you with the author’s analysis? Did he or she sufficiently build a bridge to you with the introduction, keep your interest with a rich, detailed, and relatable analysis, and close with a meaningful ending that didn’t merely repeat what had already been said?

4. Did the author apply the terms of argument correctly and adequately? Were there aspects of the text being analyzed that you think deserved more careful discussion?

5. Where did you want to see more evidence to back up a point the author was making?6. Do you have any other comments or suggestions you would like to make that were not covered

by the preceding questions? (This is a place you can also answer any additional questions that the author including in their Discussion Board post).

REVISION PLAN INSTRUCTIONS

This revision plan should be based on the feedback you received from your peers and your own sense of what you need to work on. In it, you should spell out explicitly what changes you are going to make to your draft. Focus on issues of content and organization and not just changes you are going to make to individual sentences or words, unless you feel like there are some places where these smaller issues are crucial to your overall analysis. You can list the changes you are making and number them, but be sure to write in complete sentences. Aim for somewhere between 5-10 items in your list, though more than that is fine as well. Be specific in your plan and be sure to explain what changes you plan on making. If you do this well, you will be in great shape to tackle the revisions you hope to make! Realize, though, that this is a plan, and that sometimes plans change, so don’t feel like you must make every revision you planned on and don’t feel that you can’t make additional changes – indeed, the most effective revision process may stray somewhat from the plan.

STYLE LESSON – INCORPORATING QUOTES INTO THE SYNTAX OF YOUR SENTENCES

Choosing a quote

You should always quote judiciously. There are a few reasons for this: 1) you don’t want a source you are using to overwhelm your own voice or to take over your paper, 2) you want to maintain your focus on your purpose in writing and not the purposes of your sources, 3) you want the quotes you do use to have maximum impact on your reader and for your purposes.

When you are selecting quotes to incorporate into your own paper, you should apply the following criteria:

The quote is especially relevant to your purposes and speaks directly to a point you want to make

The quote is notably eloquent, well-written, or articulated in a manner well-suited for your purpose

The quote is from an important source whose voice you want to incorporate into the conversation of your paper

The quote is stated in such a way that you want to maintain the specific language and syntax of the original.

Using signal phrases

Whenever you quote, you should always indicate that the quote is from another person than yourself. You should almost never let a quote just stand by itself without incorporating it into one of your own sentences. You should always signal in some way that the quote is from somewhere else. One of the most common ways of doing this is through the use of a signal phrase. The following are some of the most commonly used such words:

AcknowledgesAddsAdmitsAddressesArguesAssertsBelievesClaimsCommentsComparesConfirms

ContendsDeclaresDeniesDisputesEmphasizesEndorsesGrantsIllustratesImpliesInsistsNotes

ObservesPoints outReasonsRefutesRejectsReportsRespondsSuggestsThinksWrites

Examples:

Robin Hood believes firmly in his philosophy: “we steal from the rich, and we give to the poor.”

I never understood why the governor always insisted that “this state will never change its state bird” when the state bird has been extinct for over 100 years.

“Courage is not courage when you have no choice,” claimed adventurer Chadwick Hennington after his safe return from his prolonged Arctic journey.

Make sure you use a comma before the quote (or a colon) or at the end of the quote to separate it from your signal phrase. End punctuation stays within the quotation mark.

Altering syntax for grammatical correctness

Whether you use a signal phrase or not, you should always make sure that your sentence, with the quote in it, is still grammatical. Normally, the best way to do this is to make sure that the grammar of your sentence matches that of the quote.

Examples:

Incorrect: The queen believes that England “are a people of great resolve and unparalleled backbone.”

Correct: The queen believes that the English people “are a people of great resolve and unparalleled backbone.”

Incorrect: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye,” the advice of the fox in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince.

Correct: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye,” declares the fox in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince.

Incorrect: “The ratio of men to women at our university is appalling,” admonishing the president of the school.

Correct: “The ratio of men to women at our university is appalling,” admonished the president of the school.

Sometimes, however, you may want to slightly alter the quote itself by using brackets [ ]. There are a few occasions when you might do this: to change a verb tense, to better identify a noun or replace a pronoun with its antecedent, to eliminate unnecessary words. Be sure to never alter the meaning of a quote in the process.

Examples:

Original quote: “They raise the flag and plant the pole deeply into the moon’s surface.”

Modified quote: Spraeker writes about how the astronauts “raise[d] the flag and plant[ed] the pole deeply into the moon’s surface.”

Original quote: “Surely, the three travelers from Fiji could not process the enormity of what they were witnessing. The sheer spectacle of the city must have overwhelmed them as much as the revelation of the Lord would overwhelm a doubtful Christian desperate to believe in God.”

Modified quote: “The sheer spectacle of the city,” describes Fleming, “must have overwhelmed [the three Fijian travelers] as much as the revelation of the Lord would overwhelm a doubtful Christian desperate to believe in God.”

Original quote: “The immensity of this problem is beyond what modern man can handle in its complexity, its intricate pathways of cause and effect, its dire stakes, and thus the problem must first be made manageable and tangible through discourse before we can hope to solve it.”

Modified quote: Part of the difficulty in dealing with global climate change is that it is hard to wrap our minds around it. As Carol Lamont writes in Rolling Stone, “[t]he immensity of this problem is beyond what modern man can handle […] and thus the problem must first be made manageable and tangible through discourse before we can hope to solve it.”